Latoya had never laid eyes on a group like the one that was now collapsing into the welcoming, cushioned benches of her Bus 124. And Latoya had seen plenty of groups. At first glance, they had appeared to be another Friday’s busload of bone-weary concert goers, ready to be transported back to their homes, train stations, or after parties. It wasn’t until a particularly exhausted boy with panther black hair stumbled onto her bus that she noticed; the eyes. He didn’t look at her until he reached the top of the three-step stairs, apparently trying to keep his balance. Drunk, high, Latoya didn’t really mind as long as put his ass into a seat and let her get home to feed Jamal a late dinner. But then he raised his head; the eyes. Swirling, vibrantly greenish hazel orbs that seemed to have a story to tell. They were glazed over, as if peering up at her from deep under the waves; two brilliant stones, nestled into the gray sand of the ocean floor, forged in the heat of a thousand suns, perfected, nurtured even, but ultimately cast away; forgotten.
“Hell of a concert, ma’am,” he said.
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The train ticket had only cost him a dollar and ninety cents with his student identification card. Even if the price had been ten times that, he would have hardly noticed. Train rides were a luxury to him.
They let him watch.
He gazed down from his lonesome upper level perch as the black suited business men rushed into the car, newspaper tucked under one arm, briefcase firmly gripped in the other, and the trademark large coffee, no sugar or cream of course, nursed by the tight lipped mouth. They sat down, as they did everyday, and began that anxious routine that they never could seem to shake. One man, sensing a wrinkle in his paper, would send a quick whip-crack shivering down its spine. The rest followed in short order, and, as if they felt their actions deserved reward, would then simultaneously reach for that sacred elixir, swig, and begin everything over again. No matter what means she attempted to use to bring her children to order (including the count to three method), her many, many orders were inherently refused. Don’t-climb-on-thats triggered Everest-like expeditions up luggage racks, while put-that-down-right-nows transformed assorted granola bars and crackers into edible projectiles. The Macy’s window shoppers, face-painted baseball game goers, and the ever present water-seeking beach hoppers, all of whom seemingly leaped onto the train as it began to move, fidgeted excitedly in their seats. Amidst all of this--the rigid, suited men--the now near desperate mothers--the babbling, jumpy tourists--a hint of a smile crept across the boy’s shadowy face, and miles away, the wave began to stir.
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The taxi cut off yet another motorist, this time jerking in front of a blue Toyota sedan whose driver immediately began screaming. In a quite regular display of city living, the motorist exhausted his lungs, filled them again, then released another new flock of sharply beaked words, only to have them yanked from his mouth by the Wind, who flung them to the tips of the skyscrapers. Here, they threw themselves against the unforgiving metal structures, ricocheting between steel mammoths, and only after their hard outer shells were tarnished and reduced to mere whispers did they finally give up, each scornfully disintegrating into the air from whence they came.
Far below, the racing yellow blur picked up speed, and, upon reaching a traffic light, whipped into a risky left turn that barely escaped the path of a barreling semi truck. The eccentric man driving the cab seemed not to notice a thing. He simply continued to ramble on about the lack of morals in this city and the abuse he had taken in the past three days of work, none of which, by the way, was merited. “Three times!” he repeated for the umpteenth occasion, holding up a trio of spindly fingers. “Three times I told him to put out the cigarette!” The boy listened contently, that same wisp of a smile on his lips, and noted how the Arab’s coffee colored skin seemed to glow underneath the afternoon sun, and how the turban on his head, which nearly touched the ceiling of the car, swayed gently with each new swerve of the vehicle. And as the taxi continued to rocket down the boulevard, the wave gathered speed.
It seemed to him that each step he took towards the stadium and away from the mustard colored car was amplified more than the previous one; an ever increasing riptide of sound that continued to grow until finally, upon reaching gates manned by weary looking security guards, his ears were sloshing over with jerking splashes of expectancy.
“Got yer ticket?” interrupted one grisly dark haired man. The boy nodded, wordlessly reached into his pocket, and handed over a dull yellow slip.
Now, he stood in the center of an expansive land of pavement. The trips on the train and taxi of earlier were forgotten. His eyes were closed, his hands opened towards the sky, alone. He felt suspended in space, as if the moon had decided to hover inches above the surf, teasing the lapping water, playfully reminding it of how far, far away it was from the cosmos, the birthplace of eloquence. But tonight, eloquence had been captured. In front of him lay the stage. Poised gracefully in the middle of that sanctuary of sound stood the ones who had captured expression, and who retained it. It pulsed through them; flowing, a river of fluency, even to their fingertips. As the first note was struck, hanging for a long, needed moment in the waiting air, resonating totally throughout the entire stadium, pervading every thread of hair, every lowered eye, every gateway in every person, the wave, too, seemed to hang suspended as the moon, and then, as Heaven’s gates were thrust apart, the boy’s eyes flew open, together with thousands of others, and the venue roared as the wave broke upon the shore.
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Submission Name: Concert (Rewritten)
